Most mortgage advisers fail Which? test
Jul 26, 2008
An undercover investigation by Which? Money has found that many mortgage advisers are failing to do their job properly.
Posing as first-time buyers, Which? Money researchers visited banks, estate agents and independent mortgage advisers and found that just four out of 50 advisers gave acceptable advice.
Out of 50 advisers, 41 failed to provide one or more pieces of key information, and 35 failed to do a proper check to ensure that the individual could afford to repay the mortgage. Two thirds tried to sell the researcher insurance at the same time – often for an unsuitable product – and many failed to tailor their advice to the individual’s needs.
One adviser said of the key facts document they must provide, “A lot of the stuff in there is just blah, blah, blah.” Another dismissed the idea that interest rates might fall, just a few weeks before the Bank of England cut them again. A third tried to use Kylie Minogue’s recent breast cancer diagnosis to persuade the researcher to buy critical illness cover.
Over 3,000 different mortgages available
No type of adviser gave significantly better advice, although three out of the four that passed the test were independent. The fourth was an Alliance & Leicester adviser. Martyn Hocking, Editor, Which? Money: “Listening to people’s needs and giving tailored advice should be the bread and butter of a mortgage adviser’s job, but too many of the advisers that we visited took a ‘one size fits all’ approach or seemed as concerned with selling an insurance policy on the side.
“With mortgage costs soaring and the spectre of negative equity returning to the property market, it’s important that people get help to find the right deal. There are still more than 3,000 mortgage deals out there, and the difference in cost can be thousands of pounds a year, so it’s vital people do their homework and choose their adviser with care.”
